GINA

 

My heart was pounding inside of my chest. I thought I was going to faint at any second. I was gripping the steering wheel so tight my palms were sweating.

Driving down the streets of Ivory was like trying to navigate through a nightmare. Everything was darkness except for the flashing lights of the fire truck right in front of me.

But as I saw the smoke in the distance, I knew that the nightmare was too real.

I parked as closed as I could and let Dorian and the others get to work. Amy’s Bakery was up in flames with smoke billowing out of every window. The police had the entire street blocked off. I watched helplessly from the sidelines, desperately wanting to do something.

It felt like an eternity before the fire went out. The black smoke continued to rise up into the night sky. The smell of ash filled my nose.

Amy’s Bakery was all I’d ever known. Ever since I graduated high school, it was a permanent fixture in my life. And now it was gone, up in smoke with me unable to do anything about it.

The firefighters managed to stop the fire from spreading completely. Police were on the scene to investigate everything up and down the street.

“Gina!”

I turned and saw Lydia rushing up to me. Despite how pregnant she was, I’d never seen her move so swiftly.

“Lydia! Oh God…”

I wrapped my arms around her and squeezed her tight. She was in charge of the place. It’s the reason she came to Ivory in the first place. It meant as much to her as anywhere else in town.

“Are you all right?” she said, looking down at me with a concern I’d never seen before.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I wasn’t here when it happened.”

“Do you know what happened?”

I shook my head.

We were able to move close enough to the building now that the fire was out completely. The place I’d gotten so used to seeing was gone. The newly renovated Amy’s Bakery was replaced by nothing but burned char. The furniture. The displays. The walls. Everything was blackened ash, unrecognizable from what it used to be.

Lydia and I both turned when we saw Sheriff Sutton approaching us from the side.

“Sheriff!” Lydia called out to him. “What happened? Tell me what’s happening.”

“Settle down now,” he said as he put his hands up. “The fire investigator is taking a look at it right now. They just put the fire out but they have to make sure it’s not a threat that the place will go back up in flames.”

“Right,” she sighed.

I was already upset enough but it hurt me even more to see the mood Lydia was in. I couldn’t imagine what she was feeling right now, knowing that all of the hard work she’d put in had gone up in flames.

“Are you all right?” I asked her.

I put a hand on her shoulder to try and console her. Her head dropped down. Her eyes closed and a tear leaked down one of her cheeks. Her throat shifted as she swallowed. Then she took a deep breath to gather herself.

“I put so much work into this place,” she said. “And now…”

“I’m sorry, Lydia. I really am.”

I hugged her again but it wasn’t much comfort for her. As bad as it was, it was nice having her by my side at the moment.

Despite how late it was, a crowd had gathered around to see what happened. Sheriff Sutton worked with the other officers to keep curious eyes back. The firefighters started wandering around inside to make sure that everything was safe before finally letting Lydia and me inside to examine the place.

Just before we stepped in, a firefighter told Lydia to put an oxygen mask on because she was pregnant. She played it safe and did as she was told.

My heels hit ash with every step I took. The remnants of the bakery were barely recognizable. It didn’t look like anything was salvageable.

When Lydia and I headed to the back of the bakery, there was a man wearing a fireman’s hat looking down at one of the ovens. He turned his head up and greeted us with a nod.

“Do you work here?” he asked Lydia.

“I run the place. Do you know what happened?”

“It looks like it started right here.”

He pointed at one of the ovens.

“The pilot light was on,” he explained.

“The pilot is always on,” I said.

“There’s nothing wrong with that. But somebody left the gas running.”

Lydia shook her head in disappointment.

“It must have been one of the new employees I was training,” I said. “They must have forgotten to turn the gas off before they closed up.”

Lydia clenched her jaw, frustration replacing the sadness I saw just a moment ago.

“I should have been here,” she said. “I should have been here instead of letting a new employee close the place up.”

“Hey,” I said as I put an arm around her. “It’s not your fault. It was an accident. It was an accident, right?”

I turned to the fire investigator. He gave me a nod and sighed.

“It looks like it,” he said. “You should be grateful there wasn’t anybody here when it happened. They wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

Hearing the explanation didn’t make either Lydia or me feel any better.

“I’ll give you two a moment…”

The fire investigator excused himself. I stood with Lydia in the bakery kitchen, looking around at what used to be.

“I can’t believe it,” I said. “Just like that. All of it. Gone…”

I turned to Lydia to see if she were all right. She’d been through a lot ever since coming to Ivory. She was the strongest woman I knew. But after this, I wondered if even she had a breaking point.

“Lydia, if there’s anything you need—”

“It’s okay.”

She gave me a half-hearted smile from behind her mask.

“Sean will be back in town soon. It looks like he and I have some work to do.”

She exhaled a deep breath and wiped the tear from her cheek.

“We’ll be back on our feet in no time,” she said. “It looks like you’re getting more time off than you expected.”

We managed to share a laugh, despite the circumstances.

“It’s late,” she said. “You’re probably tired. You should go home and get some rest.”

“You should get some rest. The last place a pregnant woman like you needs to be is in a place like this. That baby of yours needs some good vibes.”

I playfully poked at her swollen stomach.

Lydia and I made our way out of the bakery as more firefighters continued to examine the scene. There was a string of police cars with their lights flashing even though the crowd had dispersed.

I said goodbye to Lydia as she headed back home. I was still worried about her but I knew she wasn’t about to do anything crazy. She took it as well as I could have expected her to.

I looked around at all of the firefighters and saw Dorian talking to an older bald man next to one of the fire trucks. I didn’t know what they were talking about and I wasn’t going to interrupt them. But I moved close enough to listen in on their conversation.

“What happened?” the bald man asked.

“What do you mean?” Dorian said with a shrug. “George and I got the call. We headed out here as soon as we could.”

“You were a few seconds later than usual.”

“A few seconds,” Dorian said. “Shit, it’s the graveyard shift and it was only us two. We were sleeping.”

“You sure you weren’t distracted?”

“What are you talking about?”

I stood a few meters away from them. The bald man turned toward me suddenly.

“You,” he said as he pointed his index finger at me. “Come here.”

My heart leaped into my throat. Just the way he stared at me, I knew something was wrong.

I clenched my jaw as I looked at Dorian. There was a look of uncertainty on his face. He stood there with his hands on his hips, trying not to look right at me.

“I need to talk to you,” he said to me.

I reluctantly walked up to the man.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I’m Fire Chief Burton,” he said. “I’m in charge at the station. One of my men saw someone there. A woman. Were you at the station earlier tonight?”

“W-well, I-I…”

I stuttered as I looked at Dorian, trying to find the right thing to say. As bad as the night was going, I didn’t want it to get any worse.

But my hesitation was enough for Burton to figure out that I was already looking for a lie.

“Tell me the truth,” he said. “We have security footage of the station. Don’t waste my time.”

Dorian looked at me but didn’t say anything. I knew there was no point in lying about it.

“I stopped by the station,” I said. “I wanted to pay Dorian a visit to say hello. I know late night shifts can be boring and—”

“They’re supposed to be boring,” he cut me off. “If they’re boring, it means buildings aren’t on fire.”

He turned back toward Dorian.

“And you… Who gave you the authorization to let a civilian into the station during your shift? You were supposed to be ready.”

“I was ready!” Dorian said. “George and I got here as fast as we could. We couldn’t have got here any sooner to put that fire out.”

“Maybe…”

Burton eyeballed me up and down.

“…But I never approved you letting people into the station when there were only two men on duty.”

The bald man sighed a deep breath and shook his head.

“I’m sorry, Sullivan,” he said. “I have to suspend you.”

“What?” Dorian exclaimed. “You can’t be serious!”

“I’m serious. There are rules here. You’ve gotta follow protocol. A few more seconds might not have made a difference tonight but things could have been different.”

“They weren’t. I was here. I was here as fast as I could be.”

Anger. Frustration. There was a combination of emotions on Dorian’s face I’d never seen before. I stood there staring at him, just as helpless as I’d been when I watched the fire burn.

“Come back in a couple of weeks,” Burton said as he walked away. “Until then, I don’t want you anywhere near the station, you got it?”

Dorian put his hands on his hips and looked down at the ground. I hesitated for a moment before putting a hand on his arm.

“Dorian… Dorian, I’m sorry—”

“It’s not your fault,” he said, suddenly looking up at me.

“I never should have come to the station to visit you. I shouldn’t have bothered you.”

“Hey…”

He put his hands on my shoulders to calm me down. The smile on his face eased some of the tension I felt just moments ago.

“…I don’t regret what happened,” he said. “Do you?”

“No,” I said as I shook my head. “Of course not.”

“What’s done is done. I just have to accept it.”

He put an arm around my shoulder to console me.

Dorian was suspended.

The place I worked at was burned to the ground.

I couldn’t tell which one of us was in a worse mood.

But standing there with his arm around me, I strangely felt better than I thought I would have.

We took one last look at the scene as the firefighters finished taping the building off. The police shooed away the stragglers as they retired for the evening. The sirens stopped flashing.

“Come on,” I said. “Let me give you a ride back to the station so you can get your bike.”

He gave me a smirk before we got into my car.

Dorian was quiet as we headed back to the fire station. I was too exhausted to bother him with what he was thinking about.

It felt like we were the only two people in Ivory. With the sky as dark as it would ever get, I couldn’t wait for the night to finally end.